Environmental and Sustainability Education

The Environmental and Sustainability Education program aims to enable students to become educational specialists (managers, leaders, decision-makers, educators) in the field of environmental education (EE) and education for sustainable development (ESD).

Although environmental and sustainability education (ESE) is a well-known approach, there is still a considerable gap between theory and practice. As a result, there are many educational centers dedicated to this work but often operating without a proper understanding of the methods and research in the field. Because of this, the effectiveness of their programs is limited. The leading cause of this situation is the considerable lack of experts in current ESE theory and research capable of applying it in practice or conducting their research. The primary purpose of the program is to bridge this gap between theory and practice of environmental and sustainability education (ESE).

The 2-year joint-degree Master program has been prepared jointly by Masaryk University (Czech Republic), University of Vechta (Germany), Alpen-Adria-University Klagenfurt (Austria), and University of Karlstad (Sweden) in cooperation with other external partners from other universities and non-profit environmental education centers. The program includes critical questioning and investigating the existing theoretical paradigms, current research, and prevailing practices. It is based on the values of an open learning community, of respect for diversity of background, country of origin, and particular theories, and of high expectations for quality of both research and its practical application.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• Develop new ESE programmes, including campaigns, educational activities, and interpretation programmes based on relevant theoretical frameworks.
• Competently develop or facilitate the process of designing new ESE policies and strategies for governmental or non-governmental organizations (including interpretation plans, school curricula, etc.).
• Competently design and conduct their own ESE evaluation and research projects (including government and regional strategies, programmes, community-based projects, campaigns, materials).
• Competently apply appropriate quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods in their ESE evaluation and research projects and communicate their results to a domestic or an international audience.
• Relate ESE fundamentally to other educational discourses, in particular those on inclusion and diversity.
• Relate ESE fundamentally to other pedagogical concepts, such as global citizenship education, place-based education and earth education.
• Critically reflect on their knowledge, their attitudes and their abilities in order to advance personal development processes in the sense of lifelong learning and ethically responsible action.

As a graduate, you will be able to manage, evaluate, and shape environmental and sustainability education. You may find your job in a broad scope of organizations: as a manager in environmental education centers, as an officer responsible for environmental and sustainability education, or as a member of a natural protection agency communicating with the public. Other graduates may start working as independent experts. In the program, we support independence, initiative, and cooperative skills as necessary preconditions for any working position in the 21st century.

We have no formal but real practice in our program. To deal with your thesis means that you form a team with a selected ESE-organisation and conduct research, based on its actual needs. Every thesis so joins the theory with the practice. Every inquiry will be useful. Try just what you may do in the future as your job!

The thesis is designed in the way of calling for students’ independence and initiative; students are supposed to deal with the local partners on their own and manage their research, presumably involving other stakeholders. As a result, students develop mainly their strategic and interpersonal competence, particularly time-management and communication skills. Students are expected to cooperate with a selected local partner closely and to design their research to reflect the partner’s research needs.

The standard scope of the Master's thesis ranges from 60-100 pages, including footnotes, cover sheets, content, index, list of literature, and annotations. Instruction for the Mater thesis is regulated by the Learning Agreement designed in the consortium of participated university partners.

Master of Arts is not enough for you? You may go on as Ph.D. students in Brno, Vechta, Klagenfurt...or wherever else in the world :-)